Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning January 2011 A MAGNA PUBLICATION Effective Group Work Strategies for the College Classroom • www.FacultyFocus.com Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning If you’re interested in using technology tools to enhance your teaching, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the mountain of information out there To make matters worse, much of it is either highly technical or simply not very practical for the college classroom Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning approaches teaching technologies from your perspective — discussing what works, what doesn’t, and how to implement the best ideas in the best ways These articles were written by John Orlando, PhD, program director at Norwich University, as part of the Teaching with Technology column on Faculty Focus You’ll find the articles are loaded with practical information as well as links to valuable resources Articles in the report include: • Using VoiceThread to Build Student Engagement • Wikipedia in the Classroom: Tips for Effective Use • Blogging to Improve Student Learning: Tips and Tools for Getting Started • Prezi: A Better Way of Doing Presentations • Using Polling and Smartphones to Keep Students Engaged Whether the courses you teach are face-to-face, online, blended, or all of the above, this report explains effective ways to incorporate technology into your courses to create a rich learning experience for students, and a rewarding teaching experience for you Mary Bart Editor Faculty Focus Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com Table of Contents Using VoiceThread to Build Student Engagement Wikipedia in the Classroom: Tips for Effective Use Blogging to Improve Student Learning: Tips and Tools for Getting Started Prezi: A Better Way of Doing Presentations Why You Should be Using Social Bookmarking Tools Unleashing Innovation: The Structured Network Approach Save Time and Teach Better with Screencasting Integrating Social Media into Online Education 10 Using Polling and Smartphones to Keep Students Engaged 11 Lecture Capture: A New Way to Think about Hybrid Courses 12 Personal Learning Environments Help Students Extend Learning Beyond the Classroom 13 Education Remix: Unlocking Creativity to Boost Learning 14 Effective Uses of Video in the Classroom 15 Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com Using VoiceThread to Build Student Engagement By John Orlando, PhD nline educators have long known that asynchronous discussion is deeper than face-to-face discussion due to the increased thought time and the “democratization” of the classroom But one major disadvantage of traditional online discussion is that it is separate from the lecture Students in a face-to-face classroom can stop the instructor during the lecture to ask questions, whereas students in an online classroom generally read or watch the lecture at one time and then discuss it in a separate forum later Any questions or thoughts that the students have during the lecture are generally forgotten by the time that the students reach discussion Plus, online discussion is usually tracked into preset questions determined by the instructor But a new technology allows online instructors to reconnect discussion to the lecture VoiceThread is a web service that allows users to upload PowerPoint slides, videos, photos, etc and add voice narration to create a multimedia presentation But best of all, viewers can add their own comments to the presentation via voice or text With VoiceThread students can attach questions or thoughts about a lecture directly to the lecture itself when and where they apply The result is a discussion that is integrated into the lecture itself O The advantages of VoiceThread include: • Student driven discussion: Discussion originates from the students themselves, and thus students tend to bring more of themselves into the conversation Discussion is freer and more open, touching on a wider variety of issues • A growing lecture: Discussion in a traditional online forum never leaves the classroom The class is archived and discussion forums are wiped clean for the next group, meaning that the insights are lost But because discussion in VoiceThread is attached to the lecture itself, which can then be used for the next class, students are adding to the lecture itself, which grows from class to class Students contribute to an ongoing conversation with future classes • Improved social presence: Students find that the ability to see and hear their instructor and classmates improves the sense of social presence of others in the classroom • Better understanding of nuance: Students are better able to understand the nuances of discussion when they can hear the tone in someone’s voice • Student projects: VoiceThreads are a great way for students to deliver projects and solicit feedback from others New users can create up to three VoiceThreads for free, and after that reduced is available VoiceThreads can be password protected to provide the same level of security as any learning management system Set one up and try it yourself! To learn more about VoiceThread and how it's being used in education, visit these sites: VoiceThread introduction: http://VoiceThread.com/#u189469.b21651.i122786 Creating a VoiceThread: http://VoiceThread.com/#q.b409.i848804 Student outcomes: http://VoiceThread.com/#q+college.b99673.i508133 Art class example: http://VoiceThread.com/#q+college.b8863.i62483 Student project: http://VoiceThread.com/#q+poetry.b425796.i2574380 VoiceThread Education Wiki: http://VoiceThread4education.wikispaces.com John Orlando, PhD, is the Program Director for the online Master of Science in Business Continuity Management and Master of Science in Information Assurance programs at Norwich University John develops faculty training in online education and is available for consulting at jorlando@norwich.edu ✪ Reprinted from Faculty Focus, May 12, 2010 Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com Wikipedia in the Classroom: Tips for Effective Use By John Orlando, PhD ost academics consider Wikipedia the enemy and so forbid their students from using Wikipedia for research But here’s a secret that they don’t want you to know—we all use Wikipedia, including those academics There’s a reason that the Wikipedia entry normally comes in at the top of a Google search Google relies heavily on inbound links to rank a site, and Wikipedia is one of the most commonly linked sites on the Internet Here’s another secret—Wikipedia is vetted by volunteer academics Wikipedia’s motto is “no original thought,” meaning that everything must be cited, and uncited material is quickly removed In fact, studies have shown the Wikipedia is about as accurate as Britannica M Here are two ways to use Wikipedia to improve learning outcomes in your classes: achieve these levels These articles receive thousands of hits per month, demonstrating to students the value of their work Now more than 20 universities have projects in Wikipedia Host a Course on Wikiversity Wikimedia–the non-profit foundation that created Wikipedia–also hosts nine other wiki projects, including: Wikibook (free textbooks), Wikispecies (dictionary of species), and Wikiquote (compilation of quotes) One interesting site is Wikiversity, which provides a space for hosting courses or other content An instructor can build a course page with syllabi, lesson plans, and other material for the students to access whenever they need it That page can also be linked to other educational material such as videos Best yet, students can be given editing access to the page to add their own material Groups can be assigned to add material to the course, such as resources for further exploration of the topics Another option is to have the students build self-tests on the material using free web-based quiz functions for future students This will enlist the students in an ongoing project of developing knowledge that outlives their particular class and is passed on to future generations of students Resources The Latin American Literature Project: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jbmurray/Madness Have Students Build Articles In the Spring of 2008, Professor Jon Beasley-Murray at University of British Columbia had the students in his class “Murder, Madness, and Mayhem: Latin American Literature in Translation” create articles for Wikipedia on the books that they read He transformed his students from learners to teachers, which improves outcomes Plus, creating public work improves motivation as well as performance Importantly, the students were instructed to make contact with the Wikipedia editors—called the “FA Team”—to receive feedback on their work for revisions The instructor had effectively enlisted outside academics as reviewers for his class Wikipedia also has a quality ranking system that assigns “Good Article” or “Featured Article” status to exceptionally good works About in 800 articles reach Good Article status, while in 1,200 reach Featured Article status The instructor guaranteed his students an “A” for Good Articles, and an A+ for Featured Articles The results? The students, who worked in groups of two or three, produced three Featured Articles and eight Good Articles, an exceptional result given how few articles Guide for university projects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:School_and_ university_projects/Piotrus_educational_boilerplate Listing of university projects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SUP Guide for peer review of articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:PR Wikiversity: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main_Page John Orlando, PhD, is the Program Director for the online Master of Science in Business Continuity Management and Master of Science in Information Assurance programs at Norwich University John develops faculty training in online education and is available for consulting at jorlando@norwich.edu Reprinted from Faculty Focus, May 26, 2010 ✪ Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com Blogging to Improve Student Learning: Tips and Tools for Getting Started By John Orlando, PhD ost universities press their faculty to add technology to their classroom by adopting the Learning Management System—Blackboard, Moodle, etc This is a mistake Faculty often end up spending hours learning the system and loading the same content that they use in the classroom, and finish wondering if the benefit was worth the effort I instead encourage faculty to start by adding a blog to their class A blog can be set up in minutes and is easy to learn and maintain Plus, there are a variety of studies proving that blogging can improve educational outcomes For instance: • Faculty at the University of Maryland Baltimore County found that when they switched chemistry labs from individual students doing experiments and submitting their results, to groups of students posting their findings to a blog and receiving feedback from other students, the average passing rate in class went from 71.2 percent to 85.6 percent, even as the minimum score needed to pass went up Read more about the UMBC experience here » • David Wiley at Brigham Young University had his students post their written work to a blog before handing it in The students received comments from other students and even faculty at other institutions, which improved their work greatly Wiley found that dozens of other people were effectively doing his job for him by providing students with commentary to improve their work It multiplied student outcomes without extra effort on his part Read more about the experience here » M minimum commentary necessary fulfill the requirement But students become much more invested in their work when blogging, and thus are more engaged with the material Also, Kris Kelly notes that blogging encourages higher levels of reasoning because the “focus is not necessarily on the content of the blog, but more on the process of constructing and evaluating knowledge helping us reach the sometimes elusive upper levels – analyzing, evaluating, and creating – of Bloom’s Taxonomy” (http://tinyurl.com/mtj6kf) One simple way to incorporate blogging into nearly any course is to create a single class blog and post case studies, news items, or topics for commentary Another option is to assign students to post notes on each class along with their thoughts on the material, and assign other students to comment on the postings Add blogging to your classes with any of the free platforms below: Blogger – Google’s publishing tool: http://www.blogger.com Tumblr – A feature rich system: http://www.tumblr.com Posterious – Super simple, and with lots of functionality: http://posterous.com Soup.io – Another powerful product from the “io” people: http://www.soup.io Edmodo – Good for making password protected groups of blogs: http://www.edmodo.com John Orlando, PhD, is the Program Director for the online Master of Science in Business Continuity Management and Master of Science in Information Assurance programs at Norwich University John develops faculty training in online education and is available for consulting at jorlando@norwich.edu Reprinted from Faculty Focus, June 7, 2010 ✪ One of the benefits of blogging is that it is public, and we are more attentive to the quality of our work when it is public than if it is just viewed by one other person Plus, blogging creates a person-centered discussion, as opposed to the topic-centered discussion of the LMS Students are less invested in LMS discussions and often lend the Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com Prezi: A Better Way of Doing Presentations relationships that exist at different levels of the topic Try Prezi for yourself, and then come back and share your ideas for using Prezi in the classroom by entering your suggestions in the comment box below Resources By John Orlando, PhD A very funny comedy routine on bad PowerPoints: watch it here » veryone seems to assume that a presentation must be accompanied by a PowerPoint Conferences even require presenters to submit their PowerPoints as a condition of being accepted But we’ve all seen terrible PowerPoints that detract from the presentation, and many people just don’t use PowerPoints well, hence the term “PowerPoint-induced sleep.” But maybe it’s time to (gasp) question the use of PowerPoint itself (stick with me here)! Why we assume that we must put up an outline of our points to help the audience understand them? The best presentations on TED are not accompanied by a PowerPoint of bulleted lists, but rather photos or other imagery that illustrate a point or make an effect A speaker might flash the simple word “why” on the screen to prepare the audience for questioning a common belief A single photo could be used to elicit a laugh or set the tone of the discussion One alternative to boring PowerPoint slides is to use Prezi This web-based tool allows the user to create a single canvas of text, images, videos, etc online The presenter flies from location to location on the canvas, sometimes turning elements upside down, sometimes zooming in or out, to explore the relationship between ideas Like a painter, the canvas draws the developer to choose visual imagery to create the presentation, in contrast to the textheavy, outline-based methodology of PowerPoint The theory behind Prezi is that our ideas are not linear, but rather bundles of interconnected concepts that are better captured as a whole with many parts Prezi allows the user to illustrate the relationship of concepts to one another I have abandoned PowerPoint entirely and now use Prezi exclusively for my presentations This is a remarkably freeing experience I find myself shedding my assumptions about what a presentation must be as I explore new ways to present concepts The true power of Prezi comes from painting a larger point composed of its constituent elements For example, a Prezi on learning could start with the word “Learning” and then zoom in on each letter to find that it is composed of the elements that go into learning The presenter zooms in and out during the presentation to illustrate the complex The Prezi homepage: http://prezi.com/ E A great example of how to a presentation without PowerPoint:Watch it here » John Orlando, PhD, is the Program Director for the online Master of Science in Business Continuity Management and Master of Science in Information Assurance programs at Norwich University John develops faculty training in online education and is available for consulting at jorlando@norwich.edu Reprinted from Faculty Focus, June 30, 2010 ✪ Why You Should be Using Social Bookmarking Tools By John Orlando, PhD till storing your bookmarks on your browser? That is soooooooooo 2007 It’s time to get with the program and start using social bookmarking Social bookmarking is a “two-for” — it will save you time and provide a way for students to collaborate on their research Bookmarks were originally saved on a browser, which creates a couple of problems One, your bookmarks are not available if you are on another computer Two, these bookmarks cannot be searched New bookmarks are simply thrown into the bottom of the list, which becomes unmanageable once you accumulate a lot of sites Social bookmarking has changed all that Tools such as Delicious and Diigo allow users to store their bookmarks S PAGE 84 Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com FROM PAGE on a password protected website that can be accessed from any computer on the Internet Better yet, users can add searchable tags that make sorting and finding bookmarks a breeze If I want to find that interesting website on social media in education, I type “education” into my Delicious system, and then can sort by the subcategory of “social media” within that tag, which brings me to exactly what I want Social bookmarking benefits I find myself storing far more bookmarks than I once did I have literally hundreds of bookmarks, and possibly over a thousand, but they are no less manageable than the millions of sites I can search on Google The systems integrate into your browser to make it easy to add a new bookmark I recommend opening the left side navigation bar in Delicious and leaving it open This allows you to search bookmarks instantaneously without changing your screen I’m sure that I visit far more sites each day than I once did now that finding them is so much easier But it gets better A database keeps track of the number of people who store each bookmark The user can search this database to see which bookmarks are the most popular For instance, when I was looking for free online music program, I typed “free online music” into Delicious and found Pandora Radio at the top of the list, with more than 60,000 users bookmarking the site This is quite an endorsement, and Pandora turned out to be a fantastic site Both Diigo and Delicious allow users to form groups that let all members to share their bookmarks I can create a group in Delicious that is just open to my students When they find a good website, they are instructed to share it with others in the class They are also required to provide a short description of each site in the bookmark, including why it is of value This forces students to think about and articulate the value of different sites in comparison to one another Resources Delicious: The first and still one of the most popular social bookmarking tools Its interface is very easy to use http://delicious.com Diigo: A little more functionality than Delicious Allows you to annotate and highlight bookmarked sites http://www.diigo.com John Orlando, PhD, is the program director for the online Master of Science in Business Continuity Management and Master of Science in Information Assurance programs at Norwich University John develops faculty training in online education and is available for consulting at jorlando@norwich.edu Reprinted from Faculty Focus, July 14, 2010 ✪ Unleashing Innovation: The Structured Network Approach By John Orlando, PhD his is a true story Professor “Jones” decides to experiment with a blog in his class It takes him about 10 minutes to set up a free site using Blogger He then watches students engage in lively discussions of case studies outside of class, and tweaks the blog as experience teaches him how best to use the system Thinking that others might want to add a blog to their class as well, he goes to IT and offers to lead workshops for faculty on blogging in higher education A few weeks later he is informed by IT that they have not only rejected his proposal, but that he is in violation of university policy and must stop immediately Professor Jones asks what university policy he has violated, and is told that the policy has not yet been created, but will be soon Professor Jones asks how he could possibly have violated a policy that does not yet exist Soon afterward the IT department announces a new initiative to implement blogging at the institution A committee is formed, and after nearly a year of deliberation they choose to pay for a system—rather than adopt a free, readily available system—because it allows for centralized control IT sends out an email announcing the new system, along with a text document outlining a long list of policies that strictly limit how it may be used No one adopts the system, leading IT to complain that faculty not want to use technology in their teaching T Two models of control Dave Snowdon, founder of Cognitive Edge, provides insight into what happened here Colleges implement technology using the industrial revolution era top-down PAGE 94 Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com FROM PAGE decision-making model drawn from the military But it turns out that this model was never successful in war or business (let’s call it the General Motors model) Successful organizations like Google are built on a structured network approach—a bottom-up model that draws ideas from its constituents Google gets many of its best products from engineers that fiddle with new ideas and discuss their projects in open forums The forums provide for a public vetting of ideas, with the best floating to the top to be supported by the company The strength of a structured network is that it provides a medium to draw together the creative talents of its constituents For instance, Wikipedia draws its content from thousands of contributors, yet has been proven to be nearly as reliable as the Encyclopedia Britannica because it has strict citation guidelines for contributions Snowdon points out that technology should come before planning Often the true power of technology isn’t known until users make it their own Facebook began as a way for Harvard students to connect with one another, but morphed into so much more Colleges it backwards They start by choosing one system and one way to use it and impose that on users The smart institution will encourage instructors to try five different systems in five different ways and provide a forum for them to share their experiences Faculty will see what their colleagues are doing and ask questions, thus generating interest in the technology Best practices and systems will emerge from the discussion, at which point IT enters the picture to implement those systems that have been proven in the court of public opinion The structure of technology implementation is rarely discussed, but until colleges move away from the GM model and toward the Google model they will continue to waste time, money, and talent on initiatives that are bound to fail from the start Resource: See Dave Snowdon’s fascinating discussion of structured networks here John Orlando, PhD, is the Program Director for the online Master of Science in Business Continuity Management and Master of Science in Information Assurance programs at Norwich University John develops faculty training in online education and is available for consulting at jorlando@norwich.edu Reprinted from Faculty Focus, July 26, 2010 ✪ Save Time and Teach Better with Screencasting By John Orlando, PhD t is critical to spend time training your students how to properly use the systems you’ve adopted into your teaching repertoire A common fallacy is to believe that because students today are “digital natives”—meaning that they grew up with technology—they are good at using any technology I’ve found that students’ understanding of technology is narrow and deep They are very adept at text I Assuming that your students will pick up a new technology on their own is a recipe for disaster You must also be explicit about how you want them to use these systems to avoid them going off in the wrong direction messaging and navigating Facebook, but they are not versed in using blogs, wikis, document sharing systems, and the like Assuming that your students will pick up a new technology on their own is a recipe for disaster You must also be explicit about how you want them to use these systems to avoid them going off in the wrong direction Training your students in the use of technology need not be time consuming The secret is to only it once—it becomes time consuming when you need to repeat the training over and over You can take time in class to demonstrate how to use a system, but what about the students who miss class that day, or simply forget parts of the presentation? You can write out the steps for an online class, but seeing how something is done is far more effective in learning a process than reading about it Happily, it is very easy to make a screencast that walks PAGE 104 Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com FROM PAGE people through the process and allows them to view it as often as they need I’ve found that it takes far less time to make a screencast of a process than to write out the directions I’ve also found that I get far fewer questions about a process with a screencast than written directions I make screencasts to explain nearly any task to students or colleagues For instance, if I make a spreadsheet for my boss or others, I’ll accompany it by a two or three minute screencast pointing out which cells contain which information This saves a lot of time explaining things later I also make screencasts showing students how to post to the class blog and wiki, and allow them to view them on their own Screencasting only requires a microphone, which are built into some laptops, and if not can be purchased for around $30 The system will record your mouse movements and everything you on the screen while you describe the process There are numerous free and easy to use systems, and sites to post the results for your audience to watch or download at their leisure Once you start screencasting, you won’t want to stop Have fun! Links to Free Screencasting Software for Teachers Jing (http://www.jingproject.com): An excellent system from TechSmith which allows users to make five-minute screencaptures and either download the videos or post them to screencast.com ScreenJelly (http://www.screenjelly.com/): Allows for minute videos that can be shared by email or Twitter ScreenR (http://screenr.com/): Make screencasts without downloading any software Screencast-O-Matic (http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/): Allows for up to 15 minute screencasts that are hosted on the site or uploaded to YouTube John Orlando, PhD, is the program director for the online Master of Science in Business Continuity Management and Master of Science in Information Assurance programs at Norwich University John develops faculty training in online education and is available for consulting at jorlando@norwich.edu Integrating Social Media into Online Education By John Orlando, PhD any people take it on faith that online education must be run through a learning management system (LMS) like Blackboard, Angel, etc Those systems were originally designed to allow faculty to move their courses online without having to learn HTML coding They provided all of the tools needed to deliver an online course in one package As online learning grew, so too did the functionality of course management systems As the systems grew more and more complex, they became more and more fragile, necessitating the new administrative function of instructional designer to manage the systems Control of distance learning gradually shifted from faculty to administrator as instructional designers started dictating how online courses would look and function Now faculty are starting to wrestle control back from administrators through the use of social media such as blogs, wikis, and VoiceThread These systems can be easily set up by faculty and students to foster interactivity and user generated content that is not possible in course management systems Best of all, instead of spending hours stocking the modules of a course management system, a faculty member can create a blog in minutes and spend nearly all of his or her time communicating with students But few colleges have a social media strategy The assumption is still that all content must be housed within the LMS Systems such as Blackboard are adding social media modules like blogs and wikis, but moving them into the locked-down LMS removes the very openness which gives these media value The better approach is to understand that the LMS is just one tool among many for delivering online learning, and just like a carpenter, use the tool that best suits the job Here are some ways to incorporate social media into your course: • Faculty members who want to create a hybrid course should use social media systems such as blogs or wikis rather than an LMS An LMS is good for a fully online course, but requires needless administrative time for a hybrid course M Reprinted from Faculty Focus, August 18, 2010 ✪ PAGE 114 Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com 10 FROM PAGE 10 • Many faculty are teaching fully online courses though a combination of social media and LMS systems For instance, Michelle Pacansky-Brock uses Moodle to manage assignments and maintain her gradebook, and Ning to teach her class Steve Kolowich uses Moodle plus Skype and Elluminate to add interactive elements to his online courses At Norwich University, I’ve added blogs, wikis and webinars outside of our LMS to provide students with an opportunity to explore issues within the profession that interests them • Schools are starting to attach social media “shells” to their LMS GoingOn provides blogs and other forms of discussion that exist outside of the classroom to allow collaboration between students across the institution For instance, all students in a business program can carry on discussions related to business outside of their particular courses Learning Objects is another system that provides students with a “personal learning space” where they can create a blog, share sites, and collaborate in a variety of ways with like-minded students It also allows clubs and departments to create Facebooklike sites to share information • Schools are changing to an LMS built on social media principles, such as Drupal An open source platform, Drupal gives faculty the flexibility to make student blogs the homepage of their course, rather than administrative functions, encouraging collaboration Better yet, any part of a course can be made public so that students can engage in conversations with other students, faculty, or professionals in the field Education is changing, and social media is presenting a world of opportunity to improve learning outcomes Resources Insidious Pedagogy: How Course Management Systems Impact Teaching link Learning Management Technologies: Enterprise Systems or Consumer Goods? link Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network link The Traditional LMS is Dead: Looking to a Modularized Future link GoingOn: http://goingon.com/ Learning Objects: http://www.learningobjects.com/ John Orlando, PhD, is the program director for the online Master of Science in Business Continuity Management and Master of Science in Information Assurance programs at Norwich University John develops faculty training in online education and is available for consulting at jorlando@norwich.edu Reprinted from Faculty Focus, September 8, 2010 ✪ Using Polling and Smartphones to Keep Students Engaged By John Orlando, PhD t’s an age-old problem You want to make the most of every minute you have with your students, but it’s been proven that most people can only retain about 20 minutes of content in our short-term memory before we have to reflect on it in order to move it to our long-term memory or it will be lost Add to this the violently condensed attention span of the general population and anyone hoping to provide a content-rich education in the time slots of traditional classes faces an uphill battle Polling provides an ideal way to both keep a class’ attention and provide a reflective activity to move information into long-term memory Plus, it’s remarkably easy Free websites allow you to set up polls that students take by submitting their answers via text message or on the Web These polls are a wonderful way to engage students in the material and keep their interest Best of all, the results appear in real time so students can see changes as they come in One good use of polls is to gather information about a subject before it is covered This is especially helpful when the subject concerns information that students might not want to make public with a show of hands For instance, a teacher could introduce a discussion of cheating on exams I Drupal: http://drupal.org/ PAGE 124 Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com 11 FROM PAGE 11 by asking students in a large lecture to indicate if they have every cheated on an exam This could be used to demonstrate that cheating is more common than people think A science instructor can ask students to guess the results of an experiment before it is conducted to generate thought and interest in the outcome Forcing students to take a position not only creates reflection, but also commitment to results Everyone wants their position affirmed Another option is to ask students for their opinions and use the results as a way of initiating a discussion on the issue Or you could ask a simple factual question that you know most people will get wrong in order to demonstrate a widespread misconception Polls also can be used after content is presented as a means of generating reflection on the issue These can be simple factual questions that demonstrate whether the students understood the material, or higher level questions that will help them to retain the material John Orlando, PhD, is the program director for the online Master of Science in Business Continuity Management and Master of Science in Information Assurance programs at Norwich University John develops faculty training in online education and is available for consulting at jorlando@norwich.edu Reprinted from Faculty Focus, October 4, 2010 ✪ Lecture Capture: A New Way to Think about Hybrid Courses By John Orlando, PhD Using smartphones to conduct polls While many instructors consider smartphones the bane of teaching—causing distraction and even cheating during a test—polling turns the technology into a teacher’s advantage by engaging students with the content In this screencast, I demonstrate how easy it is to use polling software Watch it here » Links Poll Everywhere (http://www.polleverywhere.com) Unlimited polls with up to 30 respondents on the free plan Flisti (http://flisti.com) Super easy polling system No signup required MicroPoll (http://www.micropoll.com) Good for creating a poll to embed in a blog or some other website Vorbeo (http://vorbeo.com) Another system for creating a poll to embed in your website Polldaddy (http://www.polldaddy.com) Free and paid plans available TextTheMob (http://textthemob.com) Free plan allows for up to three questions with 50 responses Hybrid education” has become a hot catchphrase recently as faculty blend face-to-face learning with online technology But the growth of hybrid education has been steered by the unstated assumption that hybrid technology should be used to facilitate discussion outside of the classroom, while classroom time should be spent lecturing Now José Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University, challenges this assumption by asking his faculty to put their lectures online and devote face-to-face classes to discussion His logic is impeccable Lecturing is simply delivering delivery, and not much different from reading a textbook in this regard If so, then why must lectures be held in class? An instructor could just as easily record his or her lectures and put them online for students to view at their leisure Better yet, the time freed up from delivering the same lectures year after year, course after course, could be spent putting together rich multimedia content that combines narrated PowerPoints, podcasts, Prezis, videos, VoiceThreads, etc In fact, why should faculty create their own lectures at all? Bowen notes that our system of faculty creating their own lectures is a bit like having every instructor write his or her own textbook If faculty wrote all of their own textbooks, most textbooks would be terrible Why not just use the best lectures that have been posted on iTunesU, TED, etc for content? “ PAGE 134 Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com 12 FROM PAGE 12 I tell faculty that their real value is not the information stored in their head After all, nearly all of that information is publicly available in books or journals A faculty member’s real value is in their interaction with students The back and forth with students in discussion, or commentary on their assignments to improve their writing, for example, is what gives them value Faculty should focus on this aspect of their teaching and automate as much as possible the simple content delivery part Yet most faculty have it backwards—clinging to their lectures as their most important function Teachers can test the waters of Bowen’s teaching model by putting one or two of their lectures online and devoting the subsequent class to discussion of the topics in those lectures I’ve done this with wonderful results But the secret is to avoid the all-too-easy mistake of falling back into lecturing during class time As faculty, we think that lecturing is our primary duty, and it is hard to break ourselves of this habit One option is to assign students to come to class with one question about the lecture content written on a sheet of paper that the instructor collects to initiate discussion To avoid embarrassment, have the students crumple up their sheets at the beginning of class and throw them around the room for 30 seconds Then have each student pick up one of the pieces and start reading them in order to guide discussion Give it a try, and let me know how it works Resources This video features an interview with José Bowen as he explains why he removed technology from his classroom, and the resulting benefits Watch it here » Lecture sites: • TED—Wonderful compilation of short lectures on interesting topics http://www.ted.com/ • Free Video Lectures—over 18,000 free lectures http://freevideolectures.com/ • Video Lectures—Great lecture exchange site http://videolectures.net/ • iTunesU—Must download the player to access the lectures http://www.apple.com/education/ ipodtouch-iphone/ John Orlando, PhD, is the program director for the online Master of Science in Business Continuity Management and Master of Science in Information Assurance programs at Norwich University John develops faculty training in online education and is available for consulting at jorlando@norwich.edu Reprinted from Faculty Focus, October 25, 2010 ✪ Personal Learning Environments Help Students Extend Learning Beyond the Classroom By John Orlando, PhD y son Alex is an average 20-year-old college sophomore He gets OK grades, and like many people his age, seems more interested in video games than school Looking at him, you might think that nothing in particular excites him But you would be wrong Alex is actually very interested in the opposition between science and religion He reads books about evolutionary theory and creationism, as well as scientific examinations of religious doctrine He watches TV documentaries on religion and science, and posts videos on his Facebook page of famous scientists speaking on religion In fact, he talks about his interest at the dinner table and even plans to write a book on it someday (he is actually a very good writer) We all know that much of a college education happens outside of the classroom Colleges foster an intellectual atmosphere around campus by bringing in speakers, and one of the purposes of student centers is to enable evening “bull” sessions around coffee or some stronger drink Until recently, students had no way to structure their learning experiences around topics that excite them They attended talks as they came up, or pursued interests with others they happened to meet But now social media allows institutions to provide students with a “Personal Learning Environment” (PLE) for pursuing their intellectual interests M PAGE 144 Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com 13 FROM PAGE 13 outside of the classroom Imagine that Alex’s university provided each student with a blog to devote to whatever interests him or her Alex’s blog would focus on religion and science He would post links to articles that he read, as well as his commentary on them He would start working out his thoughts on his upcoming book, or how current events relate to his interest But more importantly, Alex would have a forum to connect with others who share his passion Group members could share articles or documentaries relating to the topic, and bounce ideas off of each other Because the PLE would be public, unlike the closed Learning Management System, Alex’s group would be made up of students and non-students from around the world Of course, Alex would still attend classes to satisfy his degree requirements, but his PLE would be a way of extending his education through a self-structured and selforganized learning environment Whereas some of his classes might intersect his particular interest, everything about his PLE would revolve around his interest Maybe his passion would eventually fizzle, but until then he would be honing his communication and thinking skills through collaboration with others—which will benefit him in any future pursuits Is this concept really so radical? After all, students choose their major according to their interest, as well as their outside activities So perhaps we have all been creating a Personal Learning Environment around our lives This system is just a way that higher education could facilitate that pursuit A few universities and K-12 schools are experimenting with the PLE to improve learning outcomes Consider how a PLE can work at your own institution Links “Personal Learning Networks for Education” – A YouTube video explaining the value of a PLN Watch it now » “7 Things you Should Know about Personal Learning Environments” – A nice, concise overview from the folks at Educause Get the pdf » “The networked student model for construction of personal learning environments” – An interesting article from the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology Read it here » “Personal Learning Environments, Networks, and Knowledge – A great free course for educators exploring the PLE Explore » John Orlando, PhD, is the program director for the online Master of Science in Business Continuity Management and Master of Science in Information Assurance programs at Norwich University John develops faculty training in online education and is available for consulting at jorlando@norwich.edu Reprinted from Faculty Focus, November 3, 2010 ✪ Education Remix: Unlocking Creativity to Boost Learning By John Orlando, PhD hen considering the major advances in communication — from the printing press, to the telephone, to the television — each medium shared the characteristic of allowing either one-to-one communication or one-to-many communication But social media changed all that For the first time in history “many” can speak to “many,” and this has radically changed our world People are just starting to understand the fundamental transformation in communication that has occurred during the past five years, and some educators don’t believe in the power that social media can bring to learning They think of social media as students sharing personal information on Facebook But many students are well beyond that in using social media as a combination entertainment/learning device One example is through the new remix culture Not only ordinary people create videos that are viewed by millions on YouTube, but when they become popular others soon create remixed versions that interpret it in their own way For instance, there are scores of remixed versions of “Charlie Bit My Finger” floating around YouTube Each revises certain elements to apply the central themes to W PAGE 154 Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com 14 FROM PAGE 14 some other area, such as work, sports, etc., thus making it their own While fun to create, a remix also can be used as a learning activity A group of medical students did a remix of Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back” that they titled “Diagnosis Wenckebach.” Wenckebach is a cardiac arrhythmia, and the resulting video has been viewed by millions It is now being used by medical students around the world to learn about the condition Creating the video was a learning activity The students who developed it had to fully understand the condition and how it is treated in order to create a coherent and accurate narrative that fits the melody, as well as elements of the original theme Remixing is also a fundamentally creative process, as the creator must develop links between two different topics The process forces the creator to see the topic from new perspectives This gets to the very heart of creativity, and even genius Many great scientific breakthroughs were a result of connecting seemingly dissimilar elements For instance, Einstein came up with his General Theory of Relativity when he saw workers on a roof outside of his window and imagined what would happen if one fell off One simple way to use remixing in your classes is to provide extra credit to students who develop a short video that reinterprets some part of popular culture in a way related to the class subject The original can be a song, commercial, movie, etc Students can also remix elements of photographs or text Consider how remixing can foster engagement, creativity, and learning in your classes Remix examples: • “Diagnosis Wenckeback” (Student video A lot of fun Trust me.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVxJJ2DBPiQ • The Class (Parody of “The Office” for a class) http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/?p=254 Discussions: • TEDxNYED—Lawrence Lessig (Great discussion of remix culture) Watch here • The Machine is (Changing) Us: YouTube and the Politics of Authenticity (Discussion of social media and communication forms) Watch here • How Social Media can Create History (Discussion of the transformation brought about by social media) Watch here John Orlando, PhD, is the program director for the online Master of Science in Business Continuity Management and Master of Science in Information Assurance programs at Norwich University John develops faculty training in online education and is available for consulting at jorlando@norwich.edu Reprinted from Faculty Focus, December 1, 2010.✪ Effective Uses of Video in the Classroom By John Orlando, PhD ocial media has allowed anyone to become a video producer The result is an explosion of high-quality teaching videos Thirty years ago a teacher might show a PBS video in class every once in a while, mostly just as a break from the usual routine But today there are thousands of videos from which to choose Some teachers are resistant to showing videos in their classrooms because they think of them as cheating Teachers get paid to use up class time, and filling it with something made by someone else seems like shirking their duties But this is wrong A teacher’s value is not in the information stored in their head, but rather their ability to pull together the best learning resources to produce a desired outcome The modern teacher is (or should be) more an aggregator than a producer Why are thousands of teachers all reinventing the wheel by creating individual lectures on the exact same topic when someone else has already produced an excellent video on it? Think of videos as a way to bring the best learning resources to your students One of my favorite resources is TED talks, which are wonderful 20 minute segments by famous thinkers on a variety of topics My motto now is “If someone can say it better than you—let them.” Below are some excellent videos on learning itself which S PAGE 164 Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com 15 are well worth a view They opened my mind on what teaching really is, and what is possible I have also included some repositories of free lesson and video material I hope that these will provide you with some good material and ideas for use in your classes But first, for your holiday enjoyment, another example of the power of social media Eric Whitacre is a composer who wrote “Sleep” in 2000 A young girl sent him a video of her singing it, which gave him an idea: Why not invite anyone to send in videos of themselves singing different parts of the song—Bass, Soprano, etc,—which he would then combine into a “Virtual Choir.” The video isn’t about teaching with technology, but it’s nothing short of way-cool http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7o7BrlbaDs Videos on Teaching Jeff Javis—This is Bull… A discussion of how traditional education is built on a model of the transfer of knowledge from instructor to student, but that more and more people are reversing the flow by making education a collaborative experience http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTOLkm5hNNU Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (http://free.ed.gov/index.cfm), Apple iUniversity (http://www.apple.com/education/mobile-learning), Scitable (http://www.nature.com/scitable), World Public Library (http://worldlibrary.net/Collections.htm) , Video Lectures (http://videolectures.net), Lecture Fox (http://lecturefox.com.) John Orlando, PhD, is the program director for the online Master of Science in Business Continuity Management and Master of Science in Information Assurance programs at Norwich University John develops faculty training in online education and is available for consulting at jorlando@norwich.edu Reprinted from Faculty Focus, December 15, 2010 ✪ Dan Meyer—Curriculum Makeover An interesting presentation that explores the intersection of instruction, multimedia, and inquiry-based learning, and how the way we teach students isn’t preparing them for problem solving in the real world While presented by a high school math teacher, the concept applies to most any subject in college as well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlvKWEvKSi8 Links to Video and Lesson Material Repositories Open Courseware Consortium (http://www.ocwconsortium.org), Open Learning Initiative (http://oli.web.cmu.edu/ openlearning/forinstructors), OER Commons (http://www.oercommons.org), OpenLearn (http://openlearn.open.ac.uk), Academic Earth (http://academicearth.org), Video Lectures (http://freevideolectures.com), Einztein (http://www.einztein.com), Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning • www.FacultyFocus.com 16 Teaching with Technology A FAST, FOCUSED ONLINE COURSE FOR NON-TECHIES An in-depth look at the latest teaching tools GET UP TO SPEED ON THE LATEST TEACHING TECHNOLOGY TOOLS! Take your knowledge of online teaching to the next level Too often, courses on technology require too much knowledge of … technology But this course is created for teaching experts, not technology experts It’s all in plain English, with no impenetrable jargon or techno-speak Each module takes only about an hour to complete If you’ve shied away from the subject because of concerns that you need to be a “computer whiz,” relax; this is the course for you An outstanding presenter John Orlando, Ph.D., is Instructional Resource Manager of Norwich University’s School of Graduate Studies He’s a long-time veteran of the online classroom and faculty training programs, and he’ll lead you through the course with a friendly, engaging style An exceptional value Teaching with Technology is content-rich, but remarkably affordable Thanks to the efficiencies of online delivery, we’ve kept the fee for the course at a modest $199 What’s more, if others from your campus register, you can lower the cost still further … by $50, or even $100 or more per person You won’t find a more budget-friendly professional development opportunity It’s time to embrace the next generation of learning tools — and Teaching with Technology a fourmodule online course designed to help you make a smooth entry into the world of eLearning makes it easy h Ordering is easy! Visit us online at http://www.facultyfocus.com/courses/teaching-with-technology/ Magna Publications, Inc 2718 Dryden Drive Madison, Wisconsin 53704 USA www.magnapubs.com © 2011 Magna Publications, Inc All Rights Reserved